In August, Laverne Cox announced that she was working with Beyonce´on a new project, and now we know exactly what she had up her sleeves.

On Wednesday, the newest Ivy Park campaign launched, and Cox was front and center.

On Instagram, she shared a photo of herself wearing an Ivy Park sweatshirt, layered underneath a corset, with the caption: “It’s about being free. Listening and moving without judgement or limitation.”

“The message for this campaign is to celebrate everyone’s uniqueness,” Beyoncé said in a press release, noting the idea is to think of beauty from a place of inclusivity and democracy. “True beauty and power are born out of strength of character and defined from the inside out. There is no one standard of beauty.”

The internet went crazy at 1:00 EST, when Beyonce´finally unveiled her twins, Sir and Rumi Carter, on Instagram. And apparently, the tabloids were in correct, because according to Beyonce´, her babies are now a month old.

Has Beyoncé’s feminist awakening caught on with her husband? The think pieces predictably rained down moments after Jay Z surprise-dropped his new ten-track album 4:44 on June 30, deeming it his most mature, vulnerable, and introspective yet and perhaps for good reason. Track by track, the 47-year-old rapper reveals his battles with redefining his own masculinity, struggles to defeat his own ego, confronts cheating rumors, talks about his devotion to his mother, who has been grappling with coming out as a lesbian and a compartmentalized life for years (she even makes an appearance in the track, “Smile”). In the context of 21st-century Black politics, 4:44 is perhaps one of the most progressive rap albums to date, heralded as the audacious, revolutionary work of a Black man. But without the Black women in his life there to enlighten him, there would be no 4:44. Jay’s evolution, as reflected in this profound album, relies heavily on the impact of femininity, Black motherhood, Black female maturity, perseverance, and most importantly, Black feminism.

And, arguably, it exploits it.

At the core of the celebrated introspective lyrics is an important conversation the rapper begins about turning his back on male chauvinism and toxic masculinity, which he presents as a kind of byproduct of fatherhood and an appreciation of life by seeing it through a Black woman’s eyes. In the song “Kill Jay-Z” he asserts that he needs to kill his own ego: “But you gotta do better, boy, you owe it to Blue/ You had no father, you had the armor/ But you got a daughter, gotta get softer.” On “Smile,” he raps, “Push through the pain so we can see new life/ So all the ladies havin’ babies, see a sacrifice”—an ode to childbirth. While this is Jay Z’s account of how he came to see his need for personal change, it is very important that these lyrics are understood not simply as a natural transition, but in the context of politics within the Black community.

Even on the surface, Jay’s work clearly has been influenced by feminism. Black feminists like bell hooks have devoted their life’s work to address the impact of patriarchy and toxic masculinity on both women and men. hooks describes patriarchy as “the single most life-threatening social dis­ease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation” in The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Black feminists have called for the redefining of masculinity, often with little support and even outward hostility from Black men. It is indeed Black feminism that advocates for men to play more wholesome roles in the lives of their children, not merely participate in the household as “breadwinner.” In hooks’s Feminism Is for Everybody, she wrote, “One of the most positive interventions feminist movement made on behalf of children was to create greater cultural awareness of the need for men to participate equally in parenting not just to create gender equity but to build better relationships with children.” Jay Z’s album becomes even more political on “Smile,” on which he features his mother, who reads a poem about the difficulty of living a closeted life. He addresses her struggle directly: “Mama had four kids, but she’s a lesbian/ Had to pretend so long that she’s a thespian/ Had to hide in the closet, so she medicate/ Society shame and the pain was too much to take/ Cried tears of joy when you fell in love/ Don’t matter to me if it’s a him or her.”

It is Black feminists, like Alicia Garza and Angela Davis, who are currently fighting (and have long fought) to make both activist spaces and the Black community more “queer affirming.” These are the politics of Black women, not cis Black men. And that truth is best highlighted with a comparison of America’s current largest and most influential liberation movement, Black Lives Matter (founded by three Black women: Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrice Cullors), to its Civil Rights–era predecessors like the Black Panthers and Black Nationalists, which centered on and were led by men.

Black Lives Matter distinguishes itself from other popular black civil-rights movements by asserting their mission “goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight Black cis men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all.”

The very tenets of Black Lives Matter are centered on family, focused on empowering women and LGBTQ people and battling misogyny and homophobia and transphobia, all of which were glaring blind spots in the male-centered politics of movements like the Black Panthers, which tended to be macho and sexist, with their narrow definitions of masculinity, their homophobia, and often violent reinforcement of the oppression and abuse of Black women. Even many of today’s cis, black “intellectuals”, like Dr. Boyce Watkins and Umar Johnson, promote the idea that the gay right’s movement is a “gay agenda” created and pushed by white people, merely meant to “emasculate black men” and destroy the black community.

In her memoir, A Taste for Power, Elaine Brown, one of the most prominent women of the Black Panther Party, wrote that “a woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant. A woman asserting herself was a pariah. If a black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the black race. She was an enemy of the black people.”

Groups like SDS and the Black Panthers regularly refused to recognize women’s voices and platforms and even resorted to catcalling while women made speeches. Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 described a scene when feminists Marilyn Webb and Shulamith (Shullie) Firestone stood up to speak:
“Almost as soon as Webb began speaking some men began chanting, “Take it off!” and “Take her off the stage and fuck her!” Webb recalls, “It was like a riot breaking out.” The crowd became even more feral when Firestone spoke. But rather than rebuking the hecklers…[conference organizer Dave] Dellinger tried to get the women off the stage. Webb remembers Dellinger asking her to “shut Shullie up.”

One of the most influential writers of the era, Amiri Baraka, espoused the belief that women and men could never be equal, which was met with little to no criticism from the Black community, as when he wrote, “By embracing a value system that knows of no separation but only of the divine complement the black woman is for her man. For instance, we do not believe in the ‘equality’ of men and women. We cannot understand what the devils and the devilishly influenced mean when they say equality for women. We could never be equals … Nature has not provided thus.”

Beyoncé’s Lemonade was released a year ago this week and in honor, the singer has formed the “Formation Scholars” awards.

The scholarships were created “to encourage and support young women who are unafraid to think outside the box and are bold, creative, conscious and confident.” The awards specifically are geared to students studying either “creative arts,” music, literature or African-American studies.

The participating colleges are: the Berklee College of Music, Howard University in Washington, D.C.; Parsons School of Design in New York City; and Atlanta’s Spelman College. The 4 recipients will be either an incoming or current undergraduate or graduate student.

Although it’s not know what amount of scholarships will be available at the schools, Berklee did confirm that its scholarship is for $25,000 per school per year.

]]>http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/04/beyonce-launches-college-scholarship-award-for-bold-creative-women/feed/0The Lion King Remake Wants Beyoncé To Voice Nalahttp://clutchmagonline.com/2017/03/the-lion-king-remake-wants-beyonce-to-voice-nala/
http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/03/the-lion-king-remake-wants-beyonce-to-voice-nala/#respondFri, 31 Mar 2017 20:34:40 +0000http://mundane-mint.flywheelsites.com/?p=261915Beyoncé is currently the top choice for the voice of Nala in The Lion King remake, according to Variety. The classic childhood tale is being reimagined by Walt Disney Studios and director Jon Favreau, with Donald Glover already slated to play Simba and James Earl Jones reprising his role from the original cartoon film as Mufasa.

The production would be willing to accommodate any scheduling needs she might have, Variety said, but its insiders emphasized that Blue Ivy’s mom hadn’t made a decision yet. What do you think? Should she say yes?

]]>http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/03/the-lion-king-remake-wants-beyonce-to-voice-nala/feed/0Beyonce Fan With Stage IV Cancer Passes Awayhttp://clutchmagonline.com/2017/03/beyonce-fan-with-stage-iv-cancer-passes-away/
http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/03/beyonce-fan-with-stage-iv-cancer-passes-away/#respondTue, 28 Mar 2017 02:23:08 +0000http://mundane-mint.flywheelsites.com/?p=261895Ebony Banks, of Houston, Tx, the cancer-stricken high school student whose wish to meet Beyoncé came true when she received a FaceTime call from the singer has died.

According to Click2Houston, Banks died on Sunday surrounded by family and friends, who held a vigil in her memorial.

Banks’ friends and classmates created the hashtag #EBOBMEETSBEYONCE on social media so that she could meet with Beyoncé in an effort to help make one of her biggest dreams come true.

“Beyonce is one of her idols. She admires her so much, so we’re trying to put that on Twitter and Instagram to get Beyonce’s attention,” Alief HS sophomore Karina Gutierrez told local ABC affiliate KTRK-TV.

According to a Houston news station, Banks has spent much of her senior year as a patient at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Alief Hastings High School held an early graduation ceremony for her at the hospital.

Beyoncé fans attending Coachella got some bad news on Thursday. The singer, who is pregnant with twins, will not perform at Coachella this year after all.

The news was announced Thursday on the the annual music festival’s official social media pages.

The singer pulled out of the event under doctor’s orders. She will, however, headline the event in 2018.

“Following the advice of her doctors to keep a less rigorous schedule in the coming months, Beyoncé has made the decision to forgo performing at the 2017 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival,” read a message posted on Coachella’s Facebook page. “However, Goldenvoice and Parkwood are pleased to confirm that she will be a headliner at the 2018 festival. Thank you for your understanding.”

Well there’s always 2018!

]]>http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonce-pulls-out-of-coachella-will-perform-at-2018-festival/feed/0Carlos Santana Says Beyoncé Is Not A Singer Then Quickly Apologizeshttp://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/carlos-santana-says-beyonce-is-not-a-singer/
http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/carlos-santana-says-beyonce-is-not-a-singer/#respondWed, 15 Feb 2017 18:52:50 +0000http://mundane-mint.flywheelsites.com/?p=261675Guitarist Carlos Santana was in for a rude awakening after comments he made during an interview with The Australian Press hit the Beyhive airwaves.

When asked what his thoughts were on why Beyoncé’s Lemonade didn’t win album of the year, he said, “I think that Adele won because she can sing, sing. She doesn’t bring all the dancers and props, she can just stand there and she just stood there and sang the song and that’s it, and this is why she wins.”

“With all respect to our sister Beyonce, Beyonce is very beautiful to look at and it’s more like modelling kind of music – music to model a dress – she’s not a singer, singer, with all respect to her,” he added.

Beyoncé sang on point while falling backward in a chair and didn't miss a beat or lose breath with twins on her diaphragm Carlos Santana

It wasn’t long before Santana felt the wrath of Bey fans everywhere and took to his Facebook page to address the clarify his statements.

I would like to clarify a comment that was reported when I was doing an interview for some upcoming shows in Australia & New Zealand. My intent was to congratulate Adele on her amazing night at the Grammies. My comment about Beyonce was regretfully taken out of context. I have the utmost respect for her as an artist and a person. She deserves all the accolades that come her way. I wish Beyonce and her family all the best.

We’re glad he cleared that up.

]]>http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/carlos-santana-says-beyonce-is-not-a-singer/feed/0Beyonce’s Grammy Performance With Isolated Vocals Proves She’s Queen Of The Live Showhttp://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonces-grammy-performance-with-isolated-vocals-proves-shes-queen-of-the-live-show/
http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonces-grammy-performance-with-isolated-vocals-proves-shes-queen-of-the-live-show/#respondTue, 14 Feb 2017 20:53:38 +0000http://mundane-mint.flywheelsites.com/?p=261659Despite the fact that Beyoncé was snubbed in some major categories at this year’s Grammys, as per usual, her performance stole the entire show.

New video, this time with the pesky accompaniment dulled to background noise to highlight Bey’s stellar vocals proves she’s the Queen of the live production.

Solange has a few words to say about the Grammys, even after winning her first ward. The R&B singer took to Twitter seemingly to address the controversy about Adele winning Album of the Year, instead of her sister, Beyoncé.

“There have only been two black winners in the last 20 years for album of the year,” she tweeted Monday afternoon. “There have been over 200 black artist who have performed.”

Solange Knowles is the face of Elle’s March issue and she’s looking radiant in red on the cover.

In the cover story, the singer discussed growing up around Destiny’s Child and what it took to make her hit album A Seat At The Table.

“My sister and Kelly [Rowland] were the same age, which is like a built-in best friend in the house; they were extremely close,” Solange remembered of her childhood. “Writing felt like this insular thing that I could go back in my room and express all that I would observe, all the emotions that would arise. It felt like mine, my little thing.”

ELLE/Terry Tsiolis

“I did want to create this juxtaposition, politically, of having these very hard, messy conversations but having them stylistically in a way that you can really hear me, and not the yelling, the rage,” Solange said of her groundbreaking album. “I wanted to project in my delivery what I was not achieving at all: peace and having a certain lightness and airiness that could maybe help me get closer to having more light and airiness in my life.”

]]>http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/solange-covers-elle-magazines-march-2017-issue/feed/0Beyoncé Releases Valentine’s Day Lemonade Merchandise Collectionhttp://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonce-releases-valentines-day-lemonade-merch/
http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonce-releases-valentines-day-lemonade-merch/#respondMon, 06 Feb 2017 22:00:52 +0000http://mundane-mint.flywheelsites.com/?p=261575Days after sharing the news that she and Jay Z were expecting twins, Beyoncé has released a Valentine’s Day themed Lemonade collection that includes matching underwear sets, hoodies and more.

The items boast various lyrical references to her wildly successful Lemonade album. There’s even an ode to her new bundles of joy — i.e. the three hearts on the All Night Candy crop top. The ‘most bomb p-ssy’ bra and panty set is almost sold out but as of right now, everything else is still available.

]]>http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonce-releases-valentines-day-lemonade-merch/feed/0Ring The Alarm: Beyoncé Is Pregnant With Twins!http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonce-is-pregnant-with-twins/
http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonce-is-pregnant-with-twins/#respondWed, 01 Feb 2017 19:15:10 +0000http://mundane-mint.flywheelsites.com/?p=261508Congratulations are in order in all seriousness this time because Beyoncé just announced via Instagram that she’s pregnant with not one but two babies! That’s right, Blue Ivy is prepping for big sisterhood.

“We would like to share our love and happiness. We have been blessed two times over. We are incredibly grateful that our family will be growing by two, and we thank you for your well wishes,” she wrote.

It should go without saying that Bey is currently the #1 trending topic on Twitter and her IG post has become the fastest to reach 1m likes in history. As news continues to circulate around all of Earth and we rejoice in the good news, we’ll be posting the best reactions to Bey’s special announcement.

A photo posted by thefatjewish (@thefatjewish) on Feb 2, 2017 at 9:39am PST

]]>http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/02/beyonce-is-pregnant-with-twins/feed/0Beyoncé Interviews Solange For Interview Magazinehttp://clutchmagonline.com/2017/01/beyonce-interviews-solange-for-interview-magazine/
http://clutchmagonline.com/2017/01/beyonce-interviews-solange-for-interview-magazine/#respondTue, 10 Jan 2017 18:00:27 +0000http://mundane-mint.flywheelsites.com/?p=261239Interview Magazine tapped Solange Knowles’ big sis Beyoncé to conduct their interview for the latest issue of the mag. The two siblings chopped it up about the makings of Solo’s critically acclaimed A Seat At The Table, the meanings and importance of cuts like Cranes In The Sky and other treasurable tidbits about Solo’s voice then and now, family life and growing up in Houston.

BEYONCÉ: Are you exhausted? I know you had a parent-teacher conference …

SOLANGE: Yeah, I actually had to fly to Philly because there were no flights left to New York. And now I’m driving from Philly to New York. Well, I’m not driving, but …

BEYONCÉ: You have to drive? From Philly?

SOLANGE: Yeah. But it’s not bad. It’s only an hour and 40 minutes.

BEYONCÉ: Oh my God! Rock star. Well, it is a bit strange, because we’re sisters and we talk all the time, to be interviewing you. But I’m so happy to interview you because, clearly, I’m your biggest fan and I’m super proud of you. So we’ll start from the beginning. Growing up, you were always attracted to the most interesting fashion, music, and art. You were obsessed with Alanis Morissette and Minnie Riperton and mixing prints with your clothes … when you were only 10 years old. You would lock yourself in a room with your drum set and a record player and write songs. Do you remember that? Of course you do.

SOLANGE: I do. [both laugh]

BEYONCÉ: What else attracted you growing up?

SOLANGE: I remember having so much perspective about my voice, and how to use my voice, at such a young age—whether it was through dance, poetry, or coming up with different projects. I guess I always felt a yearning to communicate—I had a lot of things to say. And I appreciated y’all’s patience in the house during all of these different phases. They were not ever very introverted, quiet phases.

BEYONCÉ: No, not at all. [both laugh] I remember thinking, “My little sister is going to be something super special,” because you always seemed to know what you wanted. And I’m just curious, where did that come from?

SOLANGE: I have no idea, to be honest! I always knew what I wanted. We damn sure know that I wasn’t always right. [both laugh] But I’d sit firm, whether I was right or wrong. I guess a part of that was being the baby of the family and being adamant that, in a house of five, my voice was being heard. Another part is that I remember being really young and having this voice inside that told me to trust my gut. And my gut has been really, really strong in my life. It’s pretty vocal and it leads me. Sometimes I haven’t listened, and those times didn’t end up very well for me. I think all of our family—you and mom—we’re all very intuitive people. A lot of that comes through our mother, her always following her gut, and I think that spoke to me really loudly at a young age and encouraged me to do the same.

BEYONCÉ: You write your own lyrics, you co-produce your own tracks, you write your own treatments for your videos, you stage all of your performances, all of the choreography … Where does the inspiration come from?

Interview Magazine

SOLANGE: It varies. For one, I got to have a lot of practice. Growing up in a household with a master class such as yourself definitely didn’t hurt. And, as far back as I can remember, our mother always taught us to be in control of our voice and our bodies and our work, and she showed us that through her example. If she conjured up an idea, there was not one element of that idea that she was not going to have her hand in. She was not going to hand that over to someone. And I think it’s been an interesting thing to navigate, especially watching you do the same in all aspects of your work: Society labels that a control freak, an obsessive woman, or someone who has an inability to trust her team or to empower other people to do the work, which is completely untrue. There’s no way to succeed without having a team and all of the moving parts that help bring it into life. But I do have—and I’m unafraid to say it—a very distinctive, clear vision of how I want to present myself and my body and my voice and my perspective. And who better to really tell that story than yourself? For this record specifically, it really started with wanting to unravel some truths and some untruths. There were things that had been weighing heavy on me for quite some time. And I went into this hole, trying to work through some of these things so that I could be a better me and be a better mom to Julez and be a better wife and a better friend and a better sister. Which is a huge part of why I wanted you to interview me for this piece. Because the album really feels like storytelling for us all and our family and our lineage. And having mom and dad speak on the album, it felt right that, as a family, this closed the chapter of our stories. And my friends’ stories—every day, we’re texting about some of the micro-aggressions we experience, and that voice can be heard on the record, too. The inspiration for this record came from all of our voices as a collective, and wanting to look at it and explore it. I’m so happy I got to take my time in that process. And the end result feels really rewarding.

BEYONCÉ: Well, it brought tears to my eyes to hear both of our parents speak openly about some of their experiences. And what made you choose Master P to speak on the album?

SOLANGE: Well, I find a lot of similarities in Master P and our dad.

BEYONCÉ: Me, too. [laughs]

SOLANGE: One of the things that was really, really deep for me in talking to Dad is his experience of having the community choose you [as one of the first students to integrate his Southern elementary and junior high school]—to do that, to go out and be the warrior and the face of that is just such an incredible amount of pressure. And to evolve from that and still have your sense of independence and still have your stride and your strength, and to dream big enough that you can create something from the ground up bigger than any community, neighborhood, or those four corners … I remember reading or hearing things about Master P that reminded me so much of Dad growing up. And they also have an incredible amount of love and respect for one another. And I wanted a voice throughout the record that represented empowerment and independence, the voice of someone who never gave in, even when it was easy to lose sight of everything that he built, someone invested in black people, invested in our community and our storytelling, in empowering his people. You and I were raised being told not to take the first thing that came our way, to build our own platforms, our own spaces, if they weren’t available to us. And I think that he is such a powerful example of that.

Interview Magazine

BEYONCÉ: What does the song title “Cranes in the Sky” mean?

SOLANGE: “Cranes in the Sky” is actually a song that I wrote eight years ago. It’s the only song on the album that I wrote independently of the record, and it was a really rough time. I know you remember that time. I was just coming out of my relationship with Julez’s father. We were junior high school sweethearts, and so much of your identity in junior high is built on who you’re with. You see the world through the lens of how you identify and have been identified at that time. So I really had to take a look at myself, outside of being a mother and a wife, and internalize all of these emotions that I had been feeling through that transition. I was working through a lot of challenges at every angle of my life, and a lot of self-doubt, a lot of pity-partying. And I think every woman in her twenties has been there—where it feels like no matter what you are doing to fight through the thing that is holding you back, nothing can fill that void. I used to write and record a lot in Miami during that time, when there was a real estate boom in America, and developers were developing all of this new property. There was a new condo going up every ten feet. You recorded a lot there as well, and I think we experienced Miami as a place of refuge and peace. We weren’t out there wilin’ out and partying. I remember looking up and seeing all of these cranes in the sky. They were so heavy and such an eyesore, and not what I identified with peace and refuge. I remember thinking of it as an analogy for my transition—this idea of building up, up, up that was going on in our country at the time, all of this excessive building, and not really dealing with what was in front of us. And we all know how that ended. That crashed and burned. It was a catastrophe. And that line came to me because it felt so indicative of what was going on in my life as well. And, eight years later, it’s really interesting that now, here we are again, not seeing what’s happening in our country, not wanting to put into perspective all of these ugly things that are staring us in the face.